


when the fight is over

by Notfye



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: (but it's very pretty hurt. good hurt.), Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Hurt No Comfort, Unresolved Emotional Tension, always-a-girl! Gleb Vaganov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26270458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notfye/pseuds/Notfye
Summary: Gleb is the picture of what Russia is meant to be these days. She’s stern, her hair is smoothed into a bun, her uniform is crisp. She could be put on posters, could rise to the top, has dark enough coloring to stand out against gaudy, Communist red.She is, of course, a woman. And that’s where the trouble really starts, isn’t it?
Relationships: Anya | Anastasia Romanov/Gleb Vaganov, Dimitri | Dmitry/Anya | Anastasia Romanov (Anastasia 1997 & Broadway)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	when the fight is over

**Author's Note:**

> listened to still/the neva flows on repeat, had a breakdown; spent a lot of time thinking abt the in-betweens of historical queer relationships, now we're here. 
> 
> no violent homophobia because I said so (but this does fall more in line with, like, the romantic friendships of the 19th century, not necessarily like, a relationship as we would think of it in modern terms).
> 
> Anyway. Enjoy.

Gleb is the picture of what Russia is meant to be these days. She’s stern, her hair is smoothed into a bun, her uniform is crisp. She could be put on posters, could rise to the top, has dark enough coloring to stand out against gaudy, Communist red. 

She is, of course, a woman. And that’s where the trouble really starts, isn’t it?

*

The smile that comes with Gleb’s offer of tea is clumsy, like she’s never had any friends before. Like she doesn’t know how to make them. 

Anya considers for half a second. If it weren’t for the uniform—

She feels quite guilty when she turns her down. 

*

She is true to her word. Gleb  _ is  _ there every day. Always with a tight, closed-lipped smile and eyes that never land on Anya for long. 

She watches and waits, like a cat stalking her prey. But she never seems to have anything but overflowing kindness for Anya. 

They exchange few words. Less than a conversation a week, Anya would say, if their few sentences of back and forth even count. But it leaves Gleb beaming, even if she tries to hide it, and Anya is too kind to begrudge her that. 

“Be careful with this chill, comrade,” Gleb warns, and Anya pulls her coat tighter around her chest.

“I’ve lived through it before,” Anya says. It comes out more disillusioned than she means it to be. 

“Springtime will come, soon enough,” she pauses, and it drags for so long that Anya thinks she’s done speaking. “But, my offer of tea still stands. I would hate to see you catch cold.”

“Thank you,” Anya says. Her knuckles go white around her broom. “But maybe another time.”

*

Dmitry is awful. He is annoying and obnoxious and doesn’t know when to shut up. Anya knows perfectly well that he is not the sort of character she ought to hang around, but, well, desperate times. 

She’s not surprised when the Cheka comes for her. She wants to kick and scream, but the fact of the matter is that she is very small and couldn’t fight off anyone, even if she tried. She only hopes that they wake her so early for her execution that it feels like a dream. 

She is, however, surprised, when a familiar voice gives her a clearly practiced speech on Leningrad. 

Gleb turns around. Her face slackens, then shifts into something else. “Anya,” she says, tightly. 

“Deputy Commissioner Vaganova,” she returns. She sounds frightened even to her own ears. 

“You’re cold,” she says, like she’s startled. “Here, a cup of tea will warm you right up.” Anya takes the cup, but knows already that she’ll drink none of it. The way it radiates warmth in her hands is a sickly comfort. 

“What is the charge?” She still sounds so terribly timid. 

She looks at Gleb properly for the first time. She’s thinner without her coat. Her uniform sticks to her chest, and Anya imagines that she can see the bumps of her ribs through it. Leningrad has been kind to very few of them, it seems. 

“There’s no charge,” she says, and that foolish little grin of hers is back. Anya stares at her but she doesn’t seem inclined to say anything more. Casually, Gleb makes her own cup of tea, and settles, leaning on her desk. She never sits down. 

“I am sure you know the saying about one rotten apple ruining a bushel.”

“I do,” Anya says cautiously. 

“I think you should consider it here,” Gleb says, stirring her tea. “You’re not rotten. But some of those types at the Yusupov Palace are.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, rakish young men are dangerous at the best of times.” She shrugs and smiles. It looks out of place on her, the implications strangely girlish. It’s as though they could be friends, in another life. 

Anya giggles. It’s only slightly unbecoming. 

“They’re worse when they lie to you,” Gleb continues. Anya’s smile falls. 

“What do you mean?”

“I’m certain you know. Do you know how fast you'd in front of a firing squad if you were really who you said you are?”

Anya's body goes cold. 

“Everyone pretends they’re someone else sometimes,” she fumbles. “It’s just a game.”

Gleb’s eyes rake up and down her body. When they settle on Anya’s face again, they’re narrow. 

“Yes,” she says. “I’m sure it is.”

*

The thumb beneath Anya’s chin is no loving caress. It doesn’t matter. 

“Your eyes are beautiful.” 

Anya blushes, stammers out, “Thank you.”

“Be careful, my friend,” Gleb says, dropping her hand. Anya feels the loss. 

She nods. 

*

Gleb sits in her office and watches the river. She’s waiting for her orders to come in. 

Her cheeks are alight and she thinks she could burn down all of Siberia with their heat. 

*

Perhaps, Anya thinks, Dmitry is not so bad. He’s just a lost child; he’s just terribly stubborn. They’re too much alike to not butt heads. When he’s not pushed her to the absolute brink, she can recognize that. 

Besides, the grin he gives whenever he talks about the bath he’ll take in Paris is a little cute. She can’t lie. 

They mirror each other, in their own way. Like curved, half-lit, bluish reflections. Both harsh around the edges: tectonic plates, moving past peacefully until they catch. 

*

The revolver is cold and slick and deadly. Gleb wonders if ghosts exist; which ones are watching her.

*

Anya spends her nights on the road to Paris letting silent tears slip down her face. 

It’s not anyone’s fault. She just never really thought it’d be this hard. 

She only falls asleep once the combination of walking and anxiety and longing wears her out enough. She dreams of nothing, instead feels like she’s awake all night in between being asleep and being awake. 

*

Gleb looks strange, as a Parisian. 

She’s leaning over one of the Seine’s many bridges, staring at the water below. She’d stand out, with her off-the-train shoes and shabby dress, but there are so many foreigners in Paris now, she’s just another immigrant. There’s a lump on her thigh, beneath her too-thin skirt. Anya tries not to think about it. 

She settles beside her. “Bonjour, mademoiselle.”

The tips of Gleb’s ears turn red. She turns to see Anya’s face and the rest of her follows suit. Her gaze returns to the water. 

“Privyet, Anya.”

“It’s a chilly night,” she says, ignoring Gleb’s dig. “I’d hate to see you catch a cold.”

Anya grins softly, but Gleb never turns to see it. Instead, she says, “It’s not the Neva, is it?” Her voice is rough and weathered. Almost like she’s been crying.

“No,” Anya sighs. “It’s not.” Silence falls. The lights shine the same way they do during a migraine: blurred and yellow and false. 

“It’s not our home, anymore,” Anya says. 

“Maybe not  _ yours _ ,” it comes out like a snarl. “I still bleed red.”

“We all do.”

“If you believe that, come back with me.” She looks up at Anya; her eyes are ringed and feverish. “Stop this right now. You can still come home.” Gleb’s hands twitch. 

There is always a gulf between them, there has been too much unspoken from the start. The space between feels especially wide tonight: why Anya can’t go back, why she would never, not in a million years; how she can still love Russia with every breath. 

(Why the sight of Gleb on a Parisian bridge makes Anya want to cry out and throw her arms around her shoulders.) 

She can’t explain all of that. 

“I can’t.” She wants to say,  _ You know that.  _ But their relationship is so strange, so warped; maybe Gleb doesn’t. “I’m here now. I’m looking for something.”

“Do you think you’ll find it?” She sounds tired. 

“I hope I do.”

Gleb doesn’t say anything for a long moment. The river flows like blackened glass beneath them. Then, quietly, she says, “Goodnight, Anya.”

“Goodnight.” Anya slips down the road and tries not to feel the crosshairs on her back. 

*

That night, Anya has a nightmare. Dmitry comforts her. Whatever story this is, it has settled on an ending. 

That night, Gleb lies awake and wonders if her father is watching her. She is his daughter. Anxiety and guilt do not change that. 

She palms her gun. It is heavy for such a small thing. Her hands sweat and it gets on the metal, which ruins the shine. So she polishes it again. 

She sleeps and dreams of bloodied snow. 

*

At the ballet, Anya thinks she sees her, just out of the corner of her eye, dressed in a shabby grey gown too old to be in fashion. But then, that’s almost certainly the workings of an overwrought, anxious mind. 

Dmitry squeezes her hand and Anya loses the woman’s face in the crowd. 

*

She has met no woman who carries herself the way Gleb does; perhaps her Nana, but not really. Maria is a matriarch. Her power is sure; guaranteed. Gleb reaches for whatever authority she can grab, and settles it tightly around her shoulders so that no one may steal it from her. It’s sharp; self protection against the ever-changing balance of power. 

A half-remembered voice in Anya’s head reminds her,  _ People born without power never know how to hold it.  _ She shushes it. 

*

The palace is cool and dim. Dust floats through the air, the room Anya is waiting in is an old ballroom, and it hasn't been used for some time. It feels a little like she’s dreaming. 

*

So, history demands they play this game to its end. 

Gleb’s revolver clicks. Her eyes are harrowed, but her arm comes up slow and steady. As cold and dangerous as steel. “Finish it, I must.” It comes out resigned, almost, and quiet. This is the ending their fathers never got. 

“My beauty,” she calls Anya, and it sounds like a confession. 

*

She turns the gun on herself so fast, Anya almost doesn’t have time to react. Then she’s springing forward, forcing Gleb’s arm up towards the sky. 

One shot goes off. It cracks the ceiling’s plaster. 

They collapse together, all red satin and moth-eaten wool. The gun clatters away. Anya rolls off of her quickly, but still Gleb lies there, staring at the ceiling.

“They’re going to kill me.” It is the soft, dreamy voice of a woman gone mad. 

Anya helps her sit up. The hair that’s fallen out of Gleb’s bun frames her face prettily. Her eyes are wild and scared. 

“No, they are not. Stay here.” She helps her up, both of her gloved hands tucked under Gleb’s dirty ones. “We can protect you.” 

She doesn’t say anything back for a long moment. She only looks at Anya, eyes flinty and determined. 

Eventually she nods, slightly, decisively. 

Anya will take what she can get. She grins, Gleb doesn’t, and Anya tells her that she’ll find her apartments, clothes, anything. 

Gleb smiles thinly at her mention of the Seine, and Anya knows it’s over. The truth is, Paris is no place for either of them. Anya’s just better at pretending. 

*

Another apartment along another bank. Anya wants it to be enough, wants to convince herself that this will be similar enough, that it will all settle and Gleb will be happy. She is no longer Anastasia Nickolaevna, but she’s still using her funds. It’s all taken care of with a sort of ease that she doesn’t remember; that she never really knew existed. 

Anya and Dima explore. The streets are too narrow and the nights too bright for Anya’s taste, but Dmitry seems enthralled; owned by any city, Russian and French alike. 

She visits Gleb often. Anya offered her maids, but she turned her down, and oftentimes the curtains are drawn, the tables dusty. Gleb looks like a ghost standing among ruins. They take tea together, and it is always a quiet affair. 

*

To her credit, Gleb does stay for a little while. It’s not long enough. 

She announces at tea one week that she’s going back, and all Anya can do is look at her. The set of Gleb’s face is resigned.

“Don’t,” Anya says. “It’s not worth it. You know it’s not worth it.” She feels like she’s drowning. 

Gleb nods, but her expression doesn’t change. 

“You know,” Gleb says. She takes Anya’s hand and holds it tightly. “I have to go.”

She wants to say that at least they are in this terrible, grand, lonely place together, but it won’t touch her. Anya knows it won’t. 

“You miss your home.”

“I’d rather die there than anywhere else.” 

Anya tastes salt but doesn’t wipe her eyes. She kisses Gleb twice, once on either cheek. When she pulls away, Gleb’s eyes are closed. She looks pained, like she is just barely holding herself together. 

When she opens them, she says, “You still have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”

*

A month passes. Anya never hears from her, but she didn’t really expect to, either. 

Time moves on. She visits the Dowager Empress a great deal, for someone who isn’t a royal. She goes on dates, to museums and galleries and parks, places that make her breath stutter and Dmitry hold her hand tighter. It’s faint, but they’re an echo of something older, something of another life. 

In August, Dima proposes. It’s not unexpected, and it’s easy. Their wedding is small: only Lily and Vlad and her Nana, secreted away in an old Parisian chapel. What a beautiful way to live. 

*

(Anya tries very hard to not think about the woman with the dark eyes and the thin frame.)

*

*

*

Dawn comes cold and sickly in Leningrad. 

Gleb hears the crack but never feels the caress of dirt on her face. 

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE hmu over on tumblr @Notfye with any female!Gleb thoughts bc I'm being totally consumed by this au


End file.
